The Earth is shaking in Hollywood, as Paramount Skydance prepares to acquire Warner Bros in a landmark deal valued at around $110 billion. Warner Bros Games is included, but whether or not the studio survives cost-cutting measures remains to be seen.
With Mortal Kombat, Batman, and Hogwarts Legacy among the franchises on offer, Warner Bros Games brings plenty to the table, both for regular people and in terms of shareholder value. However, cuts in the region of $6 billion are to be made across all of WB as it's folded into Paramount Skydance, and video games could very well be where a significant chunk of that comes from.
"With Paramount now adding WB Games to their arsenal," Justin Kenna, CEO of GameSquare Holdings, commented to TheWrap, "they are gaining some gaming franchises that can be used to engage fans year-round within a more streamlined and vertically integrated content experience."
Kenna states that the games industry is "simply a space that you need to be playing in if you’re a media company trying to win the next generation of consumers." Marketing speak aside, games are not an avenue to be underestimated when it comes to IP. The Simpsons collab in Fortnite was the most relevant Springfield's most famous family has been in years, and the Batman Arkham games are as beloved as any of the caped crusader's films.
Then you have the Lego and Mortal Kombat games, both perennial favorites. The latter's since become a successful film series (again), opening up more opportunities for multimedia franchising ala The Last of Us and Fallout. Sadly, Warner Bros Games is in a bit of a slump, with the one-two failures of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and MultiVersus draining the publisher, and, according to industry experts, it could be up for the chop.
"Everything that’s higher-risk and half-baked and too innovative to deliver just yet are put in the freezer and you never see them again," Joost Van Dreunen, a professor in video games at NYU’s Stern School of Business, says of huge mergers like this. "So it’s not just people worrying about their jobs. There’s a real ebbing of creative energy because of this."
We can only wait and see what happens, but the medium isn't known for much stability right now, and the home of Sub-Zero and The Joker might be next to feel the squeeze.
